Telorian Civil War

Telor

Telor is the kingdom in which the campaign is based. It formed from a collection of city states split into two regions: Loama and Torno, named after the first queen and king of the realm. Originally, the two regions were separate states but were united to defeat a common enemy and the unity was solidified when the two respective leaders of the regions, Loama and Torno, married to create a single kingdom. A power vaccuum left by the deaths of Loama and Torno created the rift between the two regions once more and the regions have been on the knife's edge of war ever since. The defining features of the land are the Spine and the Great Forest. The kingdom is divided into the two regions by the spine, a large mountain range that spans the width of the kingdom.

The Great Forest is fairly unknown beyond that it began at the heart of Loama and grew into Tornor through the siege of the Spine. The Tornons did not take kindly to this intrusion and fought back against the forest and the evil that had sprung from it. Encroachments into Tornon territory prompted the creation of an conclave of paladins that swore to protect the realm from evil residing in the Great Forest. They gained power as the fear of the forest's evil encroached further towards towns and villages. Their power was so great that they rooted themselves deep in the consitution of the nation and it became almost law that the king himself must become the head of the conclave. Their newfound power lent them a great deal of strategic knowledge and their fight against the Great Forest proved more successful but there was no progress made in driving back the forest. The conclave decided that the best way to defeat the evil was to venture into Loama and destroy the forest at its core. The Loamans, who felt indebted to Ehlonna as the catalyst of Loama becoming a great nation, repelled the attack. The council of Loama rallied against Tornons and used the Great Forest as a symbol of hope and life. The ensuing war left both countries' lives and morals broken and in pieces. Evil ventured from the forest and consumed both nations. They managed to broker a peace but it had not relieved tensions between the two.

The war that decimated the land had caused a shift in the balance of power in the nations. In Torno, the failure of the conclave had many question its effectiveness. Fortunately, the king had distanced himself from the conclave meaning his power was all but unaffected. He used his influence to reform the constitution and the conclave itself, granting even more power to this 'reformed' order. The country fell into a dystopian theocratic monarchy. Religious freedom was eliminated and only the worship of conclave-approved practices were allowed. The new constitution gave rise to a new code of laws that restricted other freedoms enforced by well-trained and well-equipped inquisitions.

In Loama, the evil exploited the laissaiz-faire attitude of the council. Even the council itself started to turn. They relaxed laws on labour, slavery, civil rights meaning that many were left exploited, enslaved or discriminated. One councilman remained vigilant and demanded that slavery should remain abolished. Without the support of other councilmen, he took matters into his own hands. Enlisting the help of a extremely powerful wizard, he took his constituency, a peninsular off the southern coast, plotted to sever it from the mainland, creating an island off the nation to achieve autonomy. However, a scandal had lead to his ousting as a councilor and he vanished before the plan was complete. The wizard, honoring his commitment, completed the task and formed the Port of Numar.